HUEYTOWN, Ala. — It was a scary moment for Helena mother when she said she got a call from her son, who said he was locked inside a restaurant. Now, the manager of a Hueytown fast food restaurant is facing charges.
The manager is accused of locking 12 teenagers inside the restaurant and not letting them out until police got there. The teenager at the center of the incident said it all happened because the manager on duty last Thursday assumed the $50 bill he used to pay for his food was fake.
Derrick Leonard told WVTM 13 he and 11 of his friends were eating inside the restaurant like they usually do. He said he paid for his food, but the cashier told him he had to check the cash to make sure it was real. Leonard said the cashier gave him his change, but five minutes later, the cashier came back and asked who paid with a $50 bill. He said that’s when the manager on duty came out with what he said was a different $50 bill than the one he paid with.
Leonard said the manager locked the door with him, his friends, and other customers inside for nearly an hour.
Leonard described the situation as scary. So much so, his mother said he didn’t even call her until after everything happened. He feels he was already seen as guilty even before anyone even investigated.
“She was like, ‘y’all are not leaving till I get my money,’” Leonard said, “and then one of my friends tried to leave. She had pushed him, and then she had called police on him. Then, after the police got done talking to me, she called her boyfriend. Her boyfriend had a gun, and she was like, ‘Say it, slap me now,’ and all that stuff.”
As a parent, Davis says it was also scary for her to get the call, too, and she thought she was being pranked. Davis said her son and his friends are good kids—student athletes who even have offers to play college ball like her son. She’s just glad the situation wasn’t worse.
“I ended up in the E.R. that night due to chest pains and high blood pressure,” Davis said. “I even walked over to the Shell to get a Bayer aspirin because I thought that’s what you do if you think you’re having a heart attack.”
The manager is charged with locking the teenagers inside the restaurant. At this time, it’s unclear if they’ve been arrested. Hueytown police posted on Facebook that the bill Leonard paid with was, in fact, real.
